Smiths group posts fourth-straight quarterly growth, EasyJet narrows H1 losses

London pre-open

The FTSE 100 was being called to open 43.5 points lower ahead of the bell on Thursday after closing out the previous session 1.07% weaker at 7,438.09.

Stocks to watch

Engineering company Smiths Group reported its fourth consecutive quarter of growth on Thursday, leading the firm to maintain its full-year guidance of 3% organic revenue growth.

Smiths, which said organic revenues were up 4.2% year-to-date, stated its solid third-quarter performance comes amid ongoing sales momentum, with three divisions in growth. However, the FTSE 100-listed group did acknowledge potential impacts to further growth stemming from ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty, supply chain challenges, and an upcoming stronger comparator in the fourth-quarter.

Budget airline EasyJet said on Thursday that it expects third-quarter capacity to be roughly 90% of pre-Covid levels as it narrowed half-year losses.

EasyJet reported an interim pre-tax loss of £557.0m, compared with £645.0m a year earlier, as revenues surged from £240.0m to £1.5bn following the easing of Covid restrictions across its network.

Newspaper round-up

Unions have called on the government to take urgent action to fix a "whopping pensions gap", as research showed women working in many industries have half the retirement savings of men. The TUC said Thursday was "gender pensions gap day", when female pensioners in Great Britain start getting paid after effectively going four and a half months without retirement income. - Guardian

The City watchdog will be handed powers to ensure local communities across the UK have access to cash and could ultimately fine banks that fail to comply. Under the government's pending financial services bill, the Financial Conduct Authority will be in charge of making sure the UK's largest banking and building societies give consumers access to withdrawal and deposit facilities such as ATMs within a "reasonable" distance from their community. - Guardian

Brussels has told European Union countries that they should consider telling drivers to cut their motorway speed in the battle to ditch Russian fossil fuel. The European Commission says saving energy is the "quickest way" to tackle the energy crisis. It has published a list of changes in behaviour which it argues could cut oil and gas demand by 5%. - Telegraph

The energy industry believes it will soon fall victim to cyberattacks so severe that they will result in deaths as well as damage to critical infrastructure and the environment, a report has found. Such an attack is expected within the next two years, according to a survey of global energy executives for DNV, a risk management group. - The Times

The professional body for chartered accountants is facing questions from parliament over why it has pocketed tens of millions of pounds in fine money for auditor misconduct rather than hand over any of it to victims. Darren Jones, chairman of the Commons' business, energy, and industrial strategy committee, is writing to the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales for an explanation, as it emerged that the professional body has scooped £123.4m in fines since 2004, according to its own figures. - The Times

US close

Wall Street stocks tumbled by the closing bell on Wednesday, with both the Dow and the S&P booking their worst single-day losses in almost two years.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 3.57% at 31,490.07, while the S&P 500 lost 4.04% to 3,923,68 and the Nasdaq Composite was 4.73% lower at 11,418.15.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com